To listen to Eleri Ward perform is to hear a vocal journey in tone, lyrics and emotion. Her covers of Sondheim songs, which are intimate and haunting, catapulted her career and her notoriety in the NYC theater community. She made her off-Broadway debut this past Fall in “Only Gold”, performed as part of MCC’s celebrated “Miscast” benefit and is about to head back on her solo tour.
I recently spoke with Eleri about performance anxiety, the relationship between audience and performer, the emotive power of Sondheim’s music and the wonderful benefits of therapy.
What was it about Sondheim’s music that speaks to you as a musician and actor?
It’s just jam-packed with duality and juxtaposition. That will always be interesting and powerful and complicated and, ultimately, human. I’m able to use his music as a mirror for my own humanity.
I’m a very positive, happy person, I always look on the bright side. And yet I have also always been attracted to dark things. I’ve always been in touch with these darker emotions and interested in things that are a little twisted and a little fucked up. I have always had this duality, it’s the most fun dance ever. It hurts so good, the fucked upness of humans. In every [Sondheim] song it shows up and manifests itself in many different ways in his lyrics.
How do you experience the relationship between the audience and performer?
It varies from room to room and show to show because I think people listen in very different ways. When I was at the Kennedy Center, I had never performed for a more silent room in my entire life. Usually the room is quiet because of the nature of my show and what I do. But this was like, they were afraid to even respond or breathe. It made me feel so vulnerable and a little bit insecure. I’m all alone up there and it’s just quiet. There are moments like that but then there are other moments where there is a true symbiotic current flowing through the room. Every room is different in the way that people listen. I cherish them all for their uniqueness. But I gotta say in my shows, because it is such an intimate and personal experience, the way people engage creates a unique moment in time. It’s really fascinating and it does affect me.
It’s something that I literally have to talk to my therapist about. It’s something that I’ve been really exploring within myself and why it affects me and why it matters.
Do you think that this tour being focused on covers of someone else’s work helps because it gives you a little bit of space between you and the material, such that it’s not this extra layer of vulnerability?
You know, I’ve never felt that way to be honest. When I was in college I was in a songwriting class and every week we would have to perform a song that we wrote for the assignment that week in front of the class and I never had a problem with that. I think more than anything it’s a question of whether people like my point of view, my aesthetic, my taste. Which also, who really gives a fuck? Because it’s so subjective anyway, it’s personal opinion, it’s personal taste.
What is it like for you when you are on stage really connecting to a lyric or a moment in a song?
I think it’s something that comes naturally to me. I think the emotion is there for the taking and whenever I’m able to open that door for myself, it’s ready and waiting. That doesn’t feel as much of the scary part. It’s the technical that feels way more scary than the emotional. But also when it comes to these shows, the emotion is like a double whammy. It’s layered because I’m singing one of the most gut-wrenching, beautiful songs ever written. Then some of these songs, I originally covered years ago now. I get overcome by the journey, that girl who was just a few years ago in NYC trying so hard, maybe in some of the wrong ways. I didn’t have my eyes fully open to exactly how to be fully me at that point. I think about the girl in those first videos that I made and then I think about who I am now and I’m just emotional. I’m so proud of how much I’ve grown.
Can you talk about your performance anxiety?
I’ve been a nervous performer my whole life. I don’t remember a time when I was just carefree and singing in front of people. I have definitely gotten better with it over the years with therapy to gain heightened awareness of each situation and pinpointing my feelings in my body and then working through them. With these shows it happens more right before I go on and then once I’m on stage and I’m in the middle of the first song I think, “relax”.
A lot of my anxiety on stage comes from my perfectionism, the need to hit everything perfectly and singing every note exactly how I imagine it in my head. As someone who has no guitar training, I’m always nervous about guitar and singing at the same time because it takes a lot of focus and I identify as an actor first. I want to be able to really express these songs for what they are and getting the focus that it takes to do the things I need to do on the guitar. Then setting those aside to be able to be a vessel for expression and emotion is a whole other thing. And then you have distractions. You have someone falling asleep right in front of you. You have someone talking in the back. You have someone who didn’t realize the flash on the phone was on. There’s so many things that go into this obstacle course for my perfectionism to try to overcome that will never truly be mastered. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I will never be perfect because no one ever will.
Another thing that I’ve been keeping in mind, which my therapist brought up to me, is the difference between distress and “you stress” and the fact that our bodies can’t always discern the difference. Distress is life and death, survival mode, fight or flight. I think I’m now understanding that I can exist in “you stress” mode. If I flip a lyric, I’m not going to die. If I don’t hit that note perfectly, I can recognize that it’s not life or death and I’m able to lower the stakes a bit. I am grateful that I know now that I can play guitar and sing in front of an audience and come out alive.
What role has therapy played in your evolution as a person and an artist?
A really big one. I started therapy because of my career and my anxiety around performance. It’s really helped with this theme of surrendering that I’ve been delving into the past couple of years. I love control, that’s where the perfectionism comes from and where my discomfort of living in the gray area comes from. I’m really thankful to my therapist for opening my eyes to how to process and navigate those things.
Life is the gray area, we just want to superimpose the black and white over it to make ourselves feel comfortable. I’m really starting to embrace that and surrender to the not knowing. My career is just a whole lot of not knowing and a whole lot of giving up agency to outside forces.
Covering Sondheim songs was the first thing that moved my career forward that was in my own hands for once. I was just saying “yes” to myself and, lo and behold, other people said “yes” to me and this music.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when you connected with and said “yes” to yourself, that it resonated with people.
It’s so easy to think that you need to plug into an alternate outside power source to get what you need. But you are your own generator, don’t take your own power for granted.
You can listen to Eleri’s most recent album of Sondheim covers, entitled “Keep A Tender Distance”, here:
“Keep A Tender Distance” by Eleri Ward
Do your heart a favor and see Eleri in a city near you: